The Post, a Steven Spielberg-directed drama about the Washington Post’s critical role in discriminating the notorious Pentagon Papers, has Very Important Movie Streep written all over it. A newspaper procedural starring awards giants Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, lit to resemble an Oscar winner by Janusz Kaminski andfollowing a script from first-timer Liz Hannah and Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate, Spotlight) that touts the importance of its subject at every turn (sometimes in painfully obvious soliloquy), The Post is part important meditation on the unimpeachable import of the First Amendment, part desperate plea for Award’s attention and part Spielberg doing his Dramatic Spielberg thing. Read More

We have an inherent tendency to want to give the benefit of the doubt to a piece of art with “good intentions”. In the case of Suffragette, Sarah Gavron’s English women rights docudrama, the well-meaning intention is there in spades but the product itself is bungled and bandaged, thick with platitudes and disastrously short on emotion. For a feature documenting a major historical event that saw children torn from the arms of their mothers, clumps of activists jailed and tortured for sticking to their egalitarian beliefs and women brutalized for expressing their desire to be able to vote alongside the men, Suffragette is almost appallingly, unforgivably devoid of organic impact. Read More

To be honest, Jonathan Demme’s Ricki and The Flash sounds supremely bland on paper and it looked even worse in the trailers. Meryl Streep plays Linda Brummel aka Ricki, who years ago abandoned her family to pursue being a rock musician in L.A. Now she’s a Total Foods cashier by day and lead singer of amateur rock band The Flash by night. When ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline) tells her that their daughter Julie (a feisty Mamie Gummer) has been left by her husband, Ricki hops a plane to Indiana to reconnect with her estranged family. It all sounds cliché (and it is) but the movie excels in its execution— primarily through its tonal execution as well as a solid script and top-notch acting. Read More

Last year, Telltale Games released a video game called “The Wolf Among Us.” The interactive story re-imagined fairy tales of lore – from Snow White to Georgie Porgie – as a community of troubled New Yorkers caught up in a multiple homicide investigation. You play as Bigby Wolf, a detective with a past as coarse as his beard hair, now a man doing his best to pay penance for the huffing and puffing of his past.

Rob Marshall‘s Into the Woods has its own Big, Bad Wolf – Johnny Depp with a crumpled mustache and a rapey solo track. He bays at the moon while singing about how badly he wants to gobble up Red Riding Hood. It’s weird, off-putting and noxious – essential Depp 101. Where Telltale was able to take familiar characters and weave a story around them that benefits from our understanding of their respective fables, Into the Woods relies entirely on mimicking the collective conscious of lore, spoon-feeding back a narrative that’s more anecdotal smorgasbord than anything refined and singular. It’s one big inside joke that’s sure to tickle musical fans pink while leaving those on the other side of the fence howling for respite.

The story starts out in precious sing-song with a baker and his wife wailing their woes of a womb left barren, a pernicious Little Red (Lilla Crawford) embarking to grandma’s with a basket brimming with baked goods, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) unwittingly off to trade his milky white cow for some magic beans and a spindly witch played by Meryl Streep hemming and hawing about an aged curse and popping in and out of frames in daffy gusts of smoke. Their paths, for one reason or another, have all been pointed into the woods. And so we embark with ballad after ballad, lungs brimming with gusto.

It’s within said woods that The Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt) must gather a cow as white as milk, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as gold as…gold? in order to break the curse that Steep’s witch placed on their house many years ago. Many songs follow.

For those turned off by musical numbers, Into the Woods is an auditory onslaught that fails to break from the repertoire of singing, singing and more singing long enough to develop a story beyond the patchwork of colliding fairy tales. Chris Pine steals the show with in-film brother Billy Magnussen in a number called “Agony” but clever moments of tongue-in-cheek nods to the adults in the audience like this are woefully sparse.

The cast is admittedly stellar – Anna Kendrick, Corden, Blunt, Pine and, to a lesser degree, Streep all own their numbers, even if I personally found some of those numbers grating. But such is the nature of the musical. You’re either in it or you aren’t. It’s just not my cup of tea. What I completely fail to understand is any Oscar buzz surrounding the film as the mere idea of Streep with a nomination frustrates me beyond belief (in a year stuffed with excellent, unsung female performances.) She’s played the Academy Darling card too many times recently, earning a nod nearly every time she puts her face to celluoid. The Iron Lady doth protest too much, methinks.

18 years ago, Jeff Bridges directed a BetaMax version of The Giver. It was a lo-fi test run starring his father, Lloyd Bridges, photographed by brother Casey Bridges and narrated by Bud Court (Harold and Maude). It never made it to market – or outside the Bridge’s living room for that matter – but as it yellowed in a storage box somewhere, Bridges has since been trying to get The Giver made on his own terms.

Says Bridges, “Wanting to direct it myself, I had a certain vision of how it would go and I was in love with the book so I wanted to put that onscreen exactly how it was.” With Bridges stepping into the role that he always saw his own father in, he has helped contribute to a movie version of Lois Lowry‘s Newbury Award-winning story that preserves the spirit of the book; a baleful, cautionary tale of what we lose when equality reigns supreme.

Phillip Noyce‘s (Patriot Games) adaptation of The Giver begins in picturesque black-and-white. Like a cold-pressed “Harrison Bergeron”, society has been sanitized of all that makes us different. Everyone’s house is the same size and layout, every Year Nine gets a futurist, Walmart knock-off looking bike. Jobs are assigned just as partners are. The time for hyperbole has ended; precision of language is a must. The world of The Giver has been scrubbed of color because that might tend towards favoritism. The Communities are lands without high and lows, without love and hate. It’s a kingdom of meh.

Enter Jonas, a mild-mannered Year Twelve. He’s supposedly a potpourri of attributes, but he comes off just as bland as everyone else in this axenic town. The only thing that separates him from the quieted rabble is his persisting sense of wonder. He’s a daydreamer even in a world sanitized of dreams. In a land where being different is to be outcast, he’s a square-circle peg in a circle-square hole. His one degree of difference is just enough to tip off the higher ups that he’s not quite fit for this rigid society of yay-sayers and apologists.

Brenton Thwaites (Oculus) is an older Jonas than you might remember but he handles the material aptly. He’s a little stare-heavy and a touch too wholesome but Thwaites mostly does the role justice, offering a sacrificial character who’s capable of both great mental strength and weakness. At his graduation – er Ceremony of the Twelves – Jonas sees his peers assigned roles one at a time. His good friend Fiona (Odeya Rush) is assigned to be a Nurturer. His other mate Asher (Cameron Monaghan) is a drone pilot. Note, neither are good actors in the slightest.

As the roll drifts to Jonas, it skips past him, continuing onto the next classmate down the line. He finds himself briefly without an assignment before the Chief Elder (Streep) turns to him. Between a chop of Razorclam bangs that makes Elisabeth Moss’ motley doo on the first season of Mad Men look like a piece of high art, Meryl Steep is a rhadamanthine czar of the harshest order. She’s a dubious politician, a low-spoken dictator; a less shouty Shitler. With a mop that would date Kim Jong-un’s, she’s quietly terrifying. It’s her way or the “highway.” Remember though, there are no highways in the Communities, just wittle, itty, bitty injections that “release” you from society.

After a thudding zinger that would be at home in a Phil Dunphy Real Estate Conference (“You’re my favorite group of realtors, but I must admit, I say that to every one of them”), Elder Streep assigns Jonas the mysterious and exalted position of Receiver of Memories. In a civilization where every house looks the same, there is one that juts out like a sore thumb, lying on the edge of the map, and that’s where Jonas’ assignment has him headed.

Here, he meets the elder Receiver of Memories (Bridges), a man who single-handedly is responsible for the collective memories of the past in the hopes that he’ll be able to advice Streep and her Elder cohorts in matters we know not of. He’s a somber hermit, a man burdened with all the anguish of history and gifted with all its joys. As he passes along these memories to Jonas, the good and the bad, he loses his old moniker and becomes The Giver.

Though Noyce abandons some of the more morally tricky areas of Lowry’s novel – the interesting discussion of what has become of sex and reproduction has been all but left out – he never defames the material on which his film is based. In fact, much of Noyce’s interpretation of Lowry’s corrosive prose puts images to verbal abstractions in powerful and poignant strokes. As The Giver waxes on love, war, happiness, loss, those ideas waft from the screen in healthy torrents. He pummels us with effigies of joy, strangles us with imagery of tragedy. It’s at once chessy and breathless and, by and large, works really well. Noyce’s visual montages – though obnoxiously shuddery – seek to remind us of the power of life, the yin and the yang that is having and losing, and might even conjure up a spare tear.

As Bridges gives a quietly devastating performance as the eponymous character, The Giver tip-toes to the finish as an occasionally whopping crowd-pleaser. Noyce’s is a direly decorated dystopia sans the violence and romance of similarly themed Young Adult fare (and it’s only a brusk 93 minutes.) Noyce offers drab aestetics and moral battles in lieu of the high stakes “Do or die” of Divergent and The Hunger Games. His Giver relies on ideas prevailing over pretty pictures, meaningless battles and fluffy romances. Where other films shout, The Giver whispers. It’s not a perfect adaptation of Lowry’s provocative novel but it is boldly faithful; a mostly thoughtful vision of utopia gone awry.

With the majority of 2013 awards winding down and the Oscars gearing up for next month, it’s time for me to reflect on the best parts about last year’s films. I’ve already published my top ten list alongside the absolute worst movies of the year but with these awards, I focus on the performances, direction, music, scene work and artistry of 2013.

At first, I tried to pigeonhole five nominees into each category but found that didn’t give me enough leeway to recognize all the talent I wanted to. When I then expanded to ten, it felt like there were times where I would be putting names down to fill up spots and didn’t really work for me either. So, instead of making an arbitrary number of nominees for each category, I opted to just recognize as many people as I saw fit in each category. So while the best actor category has 11 names of note, best foreign film only had 6 nominees and so forth. I know a lot of these may see overlap with other award nominations but I tried to recognize talent from all walks, the old to the new, and award what stood out as my personal favorites.

Look out for a short breakdown in the actors and directors sections but the other categories speak for themselves.

It’s no secret that I’m a big Leonardo DiCaprio fan and it’s performances like his in The Wolf of Wall Streetthat earns him such a high ranking amongst my favorite working actors. With manic physicality, hypnotizing stage presence and wonderfully potent comedic timing, his take on amoral but lovin’ it Jordan Belfort is a role to remember. Christian Bale did wonders in Out of the Furnace and, even though I wasn’t head over heels for American Hustle, his performance there was nothing to balk at and one of the strongest features of the film. The most underrated performance of the year is Ethan Hawke who embodied humanity and boyish charm in my favorite film of the year Before Midnight. The film rests squarely on his and Julie Delpy‘s compotent shoulders and had their performances been any less, the impact wouldn’t have been nearly what it was.

Another crowded category, I had to go with a somewhat calculated choice, a man more than likely to win at the Academy Awards this year, Jared Leto. His performance, almost moreso than Matthew McConaughey‘s, grounds the heartbreaking tale of Dallas Buyers Club and brings humanity to those that are too often dehumanized. On the other side of the coin, Jonah Hill was a riot in The Wolf of Wall Street and between his introductory scene and subsequent cousin soliloquy and the unhinged energy he brings to the Lemmons scene, his is one of the most unforgettable performances of the year. Another under-appreciated role takes my honorable mention slot with Geoffrey Rush‘s lovely performance in the otherwise forgettable The Book Thief. Rush is an acting giant and watching him effortlessly capture our sympathy just goes to show his monumental range.

I know Cate Blanchett is the name on everyone’s lips right now and there’s no denying that her performance is a showstopper but, for me, was not quite the most impressive of the year. Speaking of cinematic giants, I just couldn’t help but give my top award to Meryl Streep for her poisonous performance in the ensemble drama August: Osage County. Streep is a chameleon and we’re used to seeing her, for the most part, play loveable roles so seeing her transform into an utterly despicable train wreck of a pill popper showcases why she is the monolithic actress she is. Watching Julie Delpy embody the role of Celine for the third (or fourth if you consider Waking Life) time, you can see how much she has sank into this role and it’s simply a beauty to behold. Although deemed ineligible for the Oscars, Scarlett Johansson is able to achieve wonders with just her voice and deserves a pile of praise for that.

Easily the least impressive of the four acting categories, the best supporting actress category just didn’t have quite as much to offer as the rest did this year. Going through my nominees, it was hard to choose a top spot because all were commendable but none were absolutely unforgettable. I would hardly consider Julia Roberts as someone whose films I anticipate so was caught offguard by her fantastic work in August: Osage County. She holds her own against Streep and at times even shows her up. Color me impressed. I gave the second slot to Margot Robbie of The Wolf of Wall Street because of an unforgettable scene she shares with DiCaprio that’s sexy, tortuous and hysterical all at once and would have been nothing without the presence she brings to the scene. And for all the flak Only God Forgivescaught for lacking dialogue, Kristen Scott Thomas stood out as the only character with true personality and she absolutely chewed through her deluded sanctimony. She’s menacing, repulsive and commanding and totally owns every scene she’s in. And just to preempt those offended by my lack of pedastalizing Academy darling Jennifer Lawrence, I enjoyed what she did in American Hustle but could never really take her character seriously. It was fun but not near worthy the level of praise being heaped on. And Lupita Nyong’o was certainly stunning in her 12 Years a Slave scenes but remember, this is my favorites and her performance is nothing less than a chore to watch.

I have to give a leg up to the director/writer combos so it’s no surprise that Spike Jonze has secured the top position. The humanity he brings to this technological world and the insight he’s able to provide is simply stunning, aided by his sharp visual style and realistic futurism. Richard Linklater may not be the world’ most hands on director but the palpably freedom he affords his actors gives them the capacity to create the caliber of tender moments we see in Before Midnight. He’s no bleeding heart but he’s not quite a cynic either and I love watching the way he sees the world. On the more difficult side of things, I’ve seen all three of Steve McQueen‘s films and, though this comment may be hotly debated, think 12 Years a Slaveis actually his least tortuous. At least to watch. It’s an amazing effort that drags us through hell and yet there is a string of hope that runs throughout the story. I guess that only someone from outside of the states could bring such honesty and power to a distinctly American story.

Best Ensemble:

WINNER: American HustleRunner Up: The Wolf of Wall StreetHonorable Mention: August: Osage County

If you had told me going into August: Osage County that I was in store for two of the finest performances of the year I probably would have scoffed. But after having gone through the dirty laundry with the Weston family, I can assure you that it certainly does. The ever-dependable Meryl Streep is on top of her game here and, surprisingly enough, Julia Roberts does more than just hold her own against the queen of Hollywood. In fact, she’s nearly just as great.

As acidic matriarch Violet (ironically one letter away from violent) Weston, Streep puts in the kind of work that put her on the map. Although she’s as despicable as the worst of the year, there’s just as much going on behind Violet’s pill-faded facade that she doesn’t reveal. Too bad her automated knee-jerk reaction is to lash out at her family because, with a performance like Streep’s, you can see the suffering in this cantankerous crustacean. She just can’t help but fight.

At times reminiscent of Ellen Burstyn‘s monumental performance in Requiem for a Dream, seeing Streep’s crumbling mental barricades is no fun task but it is still no less a marvel. Playing opposite her, Roberts is a wonder as well. It’s been a long time since Roberts has had anything legitimate to offer so it’s a welcome change that she taps us on the collective shoulder, reminding us that she can indeed act with the best of them.

Filling out the terrific supporting cast is a perpetually clueless and never amiss Juliette Lewis, a self-righteous and awkwardly tweened-out Abigail Breslin, a powerful beyond the pages performance via Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale doing Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor in a complicated but not completely fulfilling role, the always delightful Sam Shepard in a small but important role, and a bumbling, insecure and totally unexpected Benedict Cumberbatch as none other than the aptly named Little Charles. Calling it a stacked cast is an understatement, especially with so much prominence placed on the performances. These people aren’t here to sell you on name recognition. They’re here to act.

The events that gets the whole gang together begin when Violet’s husband (Shepard), and father to the three girls (Roberts, Lewis, and Julianne Nicholson) suddenly disappears. He’s a drinker, she’s a pill popper and their relationship is hovering somewhere in the red zone of the domestic-abuse-o-meter. So no one is surprised that he’s up and left without so much as a note. But as the events of his disappearance start to become clear, rather than coming together as a family as one might in the midst of loss, the emotional explosions just get more volatile.

Each time the family gets together, it’s like setting a ticking time bomb and waiting to watch it explode. Whenever they sit down at dinner, each comment is a turn in hot potato as we wait to see which of the family will explode in an emotional meltdown first. Their sanctimonious battles are at once hysterical and revolting, making you thankful that you’re not a part of the Weston clan but also reminding you of your own family battlegrounds.

Much like real life, throughout the film, the closer we are to the dinner table, the more tension seeps in. Accordingly, the more people at the table, the more riveting and on edge the film is. Without a place to run, you stew like a sack of potatoes, until blam! You never quite know who or what is going to pop out when they’re stacked around that unchivalrous table of food. Word for the wise: around the Weston household, tread lightly. But as we fade away from that central table – that catalyst of action – things do tend to get a little flabby.

But aside from a few minor complaints revolving around a splattering of moments of unnecessary melodrama, August: Osage County is a surprisingly good film that I can find little to criticize. However, if you’re the sensitive type who like things wrapped up in a neat package or are uncomfortable with watching a family bicker for two hours and not really resolve anything, this probably isn’t the film for you. So I guess this really isn’t a film for most people.

Although the icky subject matter will be enough to turn general audiences away, those looking for a bonafide acting showcase need look no further than this Southern familial upset. Although director John Wells has done a great job of adapting the energy of Tracy Letts‘ source material, it still feels very much like a theater performance. Between the explosive and deeply personal acting, tightly confined spaces, and webs of dangling intermittent issues, in August, we feel like we’re in the midst of a really great play.